The TTC (Telecommand, Tracking and Control) is an essential unit in a satellite that provides communications with ground. A fair amount of data processing is required for both downlink and uplink, like encryption, encoding or framing. Additionally, most satellite communications use standard frames like those from ECSS or CCSDS and closed loop frame control like FARM and…
NASA core Flight System is an open source and freely available software framework for unmanned spacecrafts. It was developed and is maintained by NASA and has been used in a number of missions ranging from nanosats and cubesats to medium size missions. Evolution of Core Flight System (cFS) Up to 2005 the main way for…
A cubesat is to perform some functions, like data gathering, navigation, communications, etc. and a number of subsystems are needed for that. Choosing the right set of elements of a cubesat will ease the project workflow, achieve an optimum result in terms of SWaP and increase the chances of success. In this article I present…
The goal of a cubesat thermal design is to ensure that all of its components remain within the operating temperature range for as long as possible, and ideally all the time. Heat transfer across the different satellite elements and with the surrounding space is complex and usually, worst-case calculations are used to dimension the thermal…
Systems engineering is a discipline extensively used in almost any space project. CubeSat projects, especially the educational ones are simpler in terms of organization, documentation and planning but even though they benefit from the use of systems engineering principles. Even if adopting the Systems engineering (SE) approach may sound like an extra burden, reality shows…
Space is mostly a perfect vacuum but there is a certain amount of charged particles, both electrons and positive ions, mainly coming from the solar wind. These particles form what is called a ‘plasma’ and has an electrical potential associated, producing spacecraft charging that can be detrimental or harmful to its elements. Any object in…